After a few brilliant mixes from customers, today I had 2 mixes which sounded like driven too hard into a limiter (limiter treshold on -10db) with a lot of ITB "Tube warmth" and way too much 500hz and 80hz area.

After cleaning these tracks up and trying to get them towards around -8 on K12 you will just hear all the damage already done by Ozone, Elephant and whatever other stuff that has been abused during mixdown.

Once on level the whole sounded like a car stereo driven too hard.

so the files were not too hot (-10DB rms) and 32bits

but both sounded like it was just a redo of a finished "mastered during mixdown" effort. recoded from 16bits to 32bits.

I've provided some tips and requested for new mixdowns.
Am i being too critical or do some people just don't hear what the're doing?

I don't think there is something wrong with "ITB" producers and/or Mixers...but I do think you bring up a very good point....

There are alot of ITB producers/Mixers, that aren't as skilled as others and sometimes do not posses the skill level required to create a commercial sounding mix that works well with mastering.

While I don't think Mastering Engineers should tell mixers what to do, they do know and understand how to do certian things in the mix to make the master optimal.

For instance, I had that whole thread about how I can get my Mixes to stand out way up front (if that's what is desired of me) after mastering no problem...but I find that when I Master some other mixes, its not always the case. Mainly becuase of the way it was mixed. This is when I just have to accpet the incomming audio and treat it to the best of my ability. The clients are happy so i can't complain...but there is definitly room for the Mastering engineer to *suggest* (not tell) certian techniques to help the mix sound better in the long run.

I'm a work-in-progress mix.eng/producer and starting to believe in ITB mixing thanks to things like Nebula and the Acousticas IRs. From what i learned, ITB Producers tend to be irresponsible with their "sonic toys" and having the necessity of gettings things done a.s.a.p no matter the cost (or no cost at all..)

@ Raphie: Thank god there are people like you out there, i pledge that whenever possible and if time/money permits, try to educate your clients towards a harshless, warmer, dynamical, spatial and depthful world

- ITB mixing is not neccecarilly "better" or "worse" than outboard mixing.

- people can as easily trash an ITB mix as an outboard mix.
And yes i regularly receive VERY high quality ITB productions, which are a real pleasure to work with.

The "problem" with ITB is that it's available for free all over the net, so the threshold for becoming an ITB producer is very low. download reaper and strawl KVR and 2 hours later your up and running with all the tools one needs in a lifetime and more. But tools don't make the artist and hence it's quite easy to get unskilled mixdowns. This is not the way we want to work, but especially with (pre) up and coming EDM artists this has become a reality. Once more advanced a lot of them do invest, but that's where the skillset than already has become higher with more releases under the belt.

And it starts with the songwriting and ends with the mixing and communication with the mastering engineer.

I don't think the Mastering Engineer has any place telling a Mix Eng what to do but I always request an uncompressed 2 bus if possible. If there's issues, I point them out.

The whole thing with being an engineer is that it's part science and part art. The thing is to stay out of the art and point out issues with the science (frequencies sticking out, phase issues, flamming etc)

I think a lot of young engineers miss the fact that there's actual science involved and they focus entirely on the art. I often wind up with some serious issues regarding low end for example. I think the ME in this case can really help them understand the science which maybe they haven't been taught. Nowhere should this affect your art per se. The Mix engineers that I work with are all very appreciative to learn about things like proper gain staging and phase interference.

There's an art to mixing though. You never want to step into that territory.

... Monitoring and room acoustics are the Nr 1 Problem of our time, defining 95% of the sound quality.

I'll second that. The computer, converter, pre and mic are plenty good for professional, although maybe not stellar, results with the cheap stuff. The tracking room an the monitoring room are far more of an issue. Even the skilled would be blind in a carpeted, squarish bedroom for tracking and mixing.

There's a lot to be said for simply not using very much signal processing when you know you're flying blind.

We did it for decades and the records from the '50s -'70s don't really sound all that bad.

There's probably a lot to be said for not using very much processing as a general rule of thumb. As far as the records from the 50s - 70s, many of those sound way better than a lot of what's being recorded now.

being a fresh beginner from the year (beginner at everything and using fruity loops, yeah it's gross)... I have a few questions :

I am not trying to master my tracks professionally, but after mixing at a very low average rms (at least I think it is low)... I usually put a limiter with often a very low treshold (-10dB or even more)..

I thought the limiting is quite transparent and helps sometimes glueing things together... (when it's not overdone to the point it's noticeable for the pulsing sound it makes)

Is that the way to go, letting a maximum of headroom... ???
Is limiting really "transparent" ??
I noticed with a max of headroom, I can make the limited track quite loud, but yeah, at some point, there isn't much dynamic range left...(i think)

I am not trying to master my tracks professionally, but after mixing at a very low average rms (at least I think it is low)... I usually put a limiter with often a very low treshold (-10dB or even more)..

If I understand you correctly, you select a threshold of -10 dBFS. This makes no sence to me. A normal setting would be -0.3 to -1 dB to prevent clipping. If your pop song has enough headroom of let's say an rms level equal to -16 dBFS, limiter action typically happens only rarely and dynamics are preserved. If you leave more headroom, no limiter is required for a pop mix.

I dont see any need to put a limiter at the output stage, if the mix goes to a mastering studio anyway. Just ensure enough bit depth of 24 bit and leave a headroom of -20 dBFS (dB "full-scale") rms.

The "problem" with ITB is that it's available for free all over the net, so the threshold for becoming an ITB producer is very low. download reaper and strawl KVR and 2 hours later your up and running with all the tools one needs in a lifetime and more. But tools don't make the artist and hence it's quite easy to get unskilled mixdowns.

Sooner or later ITB only user will show his/her inexperience to those that either use outboard gear only or a combination of the two.